On the 13th, the DOOSAN Yonkang Foundation announced artist Ikjung Cho as the recipient of the Visual Arts Award at the 17th DOOSAN Yonkang Art Award ceremony.
 
Established in 2010, the DOOSAN Yonkang Art Award supports promising artists under the age of 40 in the performing and visual arts. As of 2026, a total of 48 artists and groups have received the award across these fields.
 
The jury—Je Yun Moon, Park Gahee, Leeji Hong, and Shinwon Hwang—noted that this year’s nominated artists demonstrated a wider range of practices than in previous years.
 
Accordingly, the jury engaged in in-depth discussions about what distinguishes the DOOSAN Yonkang Art Award from other award programs and what kinds of potential merit attention beyond the completeness and achievements of an artist’s work.
 
The jury explained that a key criterion was identifying the artist for whom the opportunities of a residency and solo exhibition, offered at this particular moment, could most strongly propel the development of their future practice.

After great consideration, Ikjung Cho was chosen as that artist. Working in the media of performance, video, and installation, Cho has created art that adopts a storytelling format to explore the latent violence in society and individuals and the irrationalities within relationships. She has used narrative structures to recreate the perceptions associated with specific moments, activities, and personal experiences in daily life, expanding them into a broader form of social experience.
 
Whether she is juxtaposing the stories of teenagers roaming along the riverside with landscapes from the Middle East or presenting a form of story theater set in a lab workshop for young people or the residential environs of an apartment, she has alternated among different times and places to transform personal memories and emotions into collective perceptions.

Rather than attempting to create a specific event, Cho’s work uses physical movements, words, relationships, and rhythms to focus on the process of a story’s formation. Her characteristically trenchant observation skills and narrative construction capabilities present the viewer with concrete scenes that show the tensions and desires within youth culture, urban spaces, and communities. The artist has created a unique artistic vision that offers a sense of contemporary life.
 
Cho’s experience giving birth to and raising a child over the past few years has resulted in changes to the rhythms of her process, but she has continued to explore forms of collaboration and symbiosis with other creations through running ‘Windmill,’ a space for performance art, and she has resumed her creative efforts with works such as No Waist, which was recently shown at the Seo-Seoul Museum of Art.

Rather than a mere resumption, the jury viewed this shift as signifying a new direction in the critical approach and formal experiments that the artist has engaged in to date.
 
The jury stated, “We hope this award will serve as a turning point for the artist to deepen and expand the artistic world she has built, and we look forward to the next scenes Ikjung Cho will show us.”
 
In addition to awarding each recipient a prize of KRW 30 million, the DOOSAN Yonkang Foundation confirmed tailored support to help improve the artists’ working conditions and creative environments.
 
Sanghoon Kim, the recipient in the Performing Arts category, will receive KRW 150 million worth of production support for a performance at DOOSAN Art Center. Ikjung Cho, the recipient in the Visual Arts category, will receive support valued at KRW 80 million for an exhibition at DOOSAN Gallery and an overseas residency.

References

• 두산아트센터, [심사평] 제17회 두산연강예술상 (DOOSAN Art Center, [Jury’s Statement] The 17th DOOSAN Yonkang Art Award)